The nuns raised me to believe that a life dedicated to public service was the greatest life to which a mere mortal could aspire. Their hidden agenda (all nuns have hidden agendas) was to recruit the more naïve among us into the seminary. While Sister Alexis and the rest failed with me, some of what they taught must’ve sunk in. I’ve spent most of my life in or around politics, government or nonprofits.

When it came to choosing a grad school, I followed the Greater Good rather than the Almighty Dollar. While most of my friends went to business or law school, I studied public policy. What’s public policy? Most employers have the same question. Basically, my public-policy degree guaranteed me a job right out of grad school that paid 60 percent of what an M.B.A. made in the same position.

But that’s Matski’s personal experience. Let’s consider the prospects for public action on a larger scale. Imagine running for Congress. You’re educated, you’re moral, you love to serve the public, and the good sisters are behind you every step of the way. But wait—do you have a million bucks lying around? Because that’s about what a congressional campaign costs. And the average Senate run rings up around $4 million. Turns out serving the public good is expensive. Tocqueville—who considered civic life the cornerstone of democracy—is turning in his grave.

For me, there’s a bigger question here. Long before the Dominican Sisters, many philosophers considered the public life the most virtuous one. The Greeks called it vita activa, or the “life of action,” by which they meant a life devoted to the public—rather than the private—good.

So we’ve priced the poor out of the market for virtue. And that’s nothing new. The virtuous in our modern American society eat organic, drive hybrid cars and go to the gym. What do these things have in common? They’re expensive compared with alternatives that are not as good for Mother Earth. Where’s the public good in that?

Public service says a lot about someone, and one thing it most certainly says is that the person doing it has the financial means to make it happen. Anyway, as Sister Alexis would remind you, “Pride is a sin.”